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English does have a subjunctive mood for counterfactuals like this, to keep people from thinking that you mean the vaccine actually is available or was mass-pro
by Noumenon72 7y ago
English does have a subjunctive mood for counterfactuals like this, to keep people from thinking that you mean the vaccine actually is available or was mass-produced in the past. The sentence would be more grammatical like this:
"Even if the vaccine were available now, it would take more than a year to mass-produce it..."
- ryanmccullagh 7y agoI think the OP may have just made a mistake. As a native speaker, his sentence is wrong. "It took" is perfect paste tense. I think their intent was to say "It will have taken, (future perfect), or "it will take" (simple future).
- Noumenon72 7y ago"It will take" would work fine if he had said "Once the vaccine is available, it will take...", because that doesn't imply the vaccine is available now. "Even if the vaccine is available, it will take" is wrong because the vaccine is not available. That means you need "would" instead of "will", and ideally a past subjunctive verb in the if-clause. "If it were available, it would take time to distribute." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_conditional_sentences#Second_conditional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_conditional_sentences#...
- ezoe 7y agoThanks. as you clearly see, English is not my native language.